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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Protagoras's attempt to persuade others to accept relativism is pragmatically self-refuting

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Defending a philosophical position commits one to attempting to convince interlocutors of the superior value of that position
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    • 2.The relativist cannot assume that her arguments are good for persuading others
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    • 3.Therefore the relativist cannot make the standard dialectical commitment required by argumentation
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Protagoras's act of persuasion presupposes that his arguments have truth-tracking force capable of rationally moving interlocutors toward relativism.
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    • 2.If all truths are relative to the individual, then Protagoras's arguments cannot possess the intersubjective rational authority that persuasion requires.
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    • 3.Therefore Protagoras must tacitly invoke an absolute standard of argumentative validity that his own doctrine prohibits, undercutting the enterprise from within.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.As Plato demonstrates in the Theaetetus (169d–171c), the Protagorean doctrine entails that those who disagree with relativism are correct relative to their own measure.
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    • 2.If dissenters are by relativism's own lights correct, then Protagoras's attempt to replace their view with his constitutes an action his doctrine renders rationally unjustifiable.
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    • 3.Engaging in rational persuasion thus commits Protagoras to the existence of mind-independent evaluative standards—precisely the objectivism he denies.
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